Free SSL certificates for every project & every environment

At Platform.sh, we believe that all websites deserve to be secure, fast, and feature-rich, and that it should be easy to have all three. Secure has always meant that a site is encrypted using SSL, which is why we’ve never charged for an SSL certificate. Fast means using HTTP/2, which we added support for earlier this year, but most browsers only support HTTP/2 over SSL. And feature-rich means allowing the full range of newer web functionality such as geolocation, access to media devices, or notifications, many of which browsers are now only permitting over SSL connections.

You know what? The modern web only works properly with SSL so let’s cut out the middleman. Let’s Encrypt everything.

We’re happy to announce automatic support for Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates on every production site on Platform.sh Professional, at no charge.

Starting today for all new projects, on every deploy we will automatically provision and install an SSL certificate for you using the free Let’s Encrypt service. You don’t have to do anything. It will just be there.

For existing projects, we're bringing that functionality online in batches to avoid overwhelming the Let's Encrypt servers. We expect to finish getting through them all within the next week or two. If you're about to bring a site live and want to make sure you get Let's Encrypt functionality before that, just file a support ticket and we'll bump you to the front of the line.

Wait, what does this mean for my site?

If you currently just have HTTP routes defined in your routes.yaml file, then as of your next deploy HTTPS requests will be served as HTTPS requests rather than being redirected to HTTP. Both will “just work”.

If you want to serve your entire site over HTTPS all the time (and yes, you do), simply change all http:// routes in your routing file to be https://. That will automatically redirect HTTP requests to HTTPS going forward.

See the Routes section of the documentation for more details, but really, there’s not many details beyond that. It just works.

What about Platform.sh Enterprise?

Most Platform.sh Enterprise sites are served through a Content Delivery Network already, in which case the SSL certificate is handled by the CDN. This change has no impact on Platform.sh Enterprise customers.

Neat! So what should I do?

You don’t have to do anything. HTTPS just works now. As above, you can configure your site to use HTTPS exclusively by adding the letter "s" to your routes.yaml file in a few places. (We told you it was easy.)

Of course, now that you know your site will use SSL, you also know it will be using HTTP/2. All SSL-protected sites on Platform.sh use HTTP/2. HTTP/2 is supported by nearly 80% of web browsers in the world. That makes it safe, and a good investment, to start optimizing your site for HTTP/2, layering in HTTP/2-specific capabilities like server push, and so forth.

Secure, fast, feature-rich, and easy. Welcome to Platform.sh!